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this gives a route for AME on STM in CPython via the LLVM. it assumes (afaict - it took me a while to grok the article and i'm still not sure i have it right)

this gives a route for AME on STM in CPython via the LLVM. it assumes (afaict - it took me a while to grok the article and i'm still not sure i have it right) that the CPython GIL will be removed. but we already have a failed attempt to remove the GIL via LLVM (unladen swallow). so the obvious question is - how meaningful is that failure? does it mean that removing the GIL via LLVM is hard? how hard? because without removing the GIL, AME and STM are pointless, right? [edit: ok, thanks for the reply. it turns out it was dropped from the roadmap for unladen swallow because the garbage collection library they thought would help turned out not to - see https://code.google.com/p/unladen-swallow/wiki/ProjectPlan#Global_Interpreter_Lock https://code.google.com/p/unladen-swallow/wiki/ProjectPlan#G... - so i guess this question is much less interesting. sorry.] unrelated note / question. this is the first time i've heard that HTM is restricted to the cache(s) (although it makes a lot of sense in retrospect). how serious a limitation is that for other languages? is haskell planning to use it? what about clojure (JVM - guess not)? and what happens to HTM if the cache overflows? AME: automatic mutual exclusion, STM: software transactional memory, HTM: hardware transactional memory, LLVM: itself [fixed, thanks], GIL: global interpreter lock, JVM: java virtual machine, uff.

kingkilr 14y ago
Unladen Swallow never failed to remove the GIL, that goal was never even attempted before the project fizzled out.
_delirium 14y ago
Acronym nitpick: LLVM originally stood for low-level virtual machine, not little-language. It doesn't really have a connection to the little-language or domain-specific-language communities, but instead originates in a desire to provide a compiler target that was lower-level than generating C code, but less platform-specific than directly generating machine code (C-- is another project in that space). But it's since been renamed to just LLVM, a brand that doesn't officially stand for anything.

kingkilr 14y ago

Unladen Swallow never failed to remove the GIL, that goal was never even attempted before the project fizzled out.

_delirium 14y ago

Acronym nitpick: LLVM originally stood for low-level virtual machine, not little-language. It doesn't really have a connection to the little-language or domain-specific-language communities, but instead originates in a desire to provide a compiler target that was lower-level than generating C code, but less platform-specific than directly generating machine code (C-- is another project in that space). But it's since been renamed to just LLVM, a brand that doesn't officially stand for anything.